PH hosts ‘scam hubs’ in condos for trafficking victims, senators learn
MANILA, Philippines — Senators were alarmed on Wednesday after Senator Risa Hontiveros claimed that the Philippines was hosting “scam hubs” in condominiums where about 1,000 trafficked victims stay to engage in cryptocurrency frauds.
“Nothing prepared us for what we discovered. Our country is hosting its very own scam hubs. Large condominium buildings are being repurposed to be used as living and working facilities for trafficked human beings – being forced to perform scams on hapless victims,” she said at the panel hearing.
Hundreds or even thousands of trafficked victims are from Africa and Southeast Asian nations like Indonesia, Vietnam, Cambodia, and Myanmar, she noted.
“But if the scam hubs in Cambodia and Myanmar are in the middle of nowhere or in provinces, here in the Philippines, it’s in the capital region. In the middle of the urban jungle,” Hontiveros said partly in Filipino.